Subject:
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Re: Those stupid liberal judges are at it again!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 12 Sep 2002 16:04:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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1074 times
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David Koudys wrote:
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Schlickbernd writes:
>
> <snip>
>
> > > I suppose that depends on what level of socialism you are refering to.
> > > Virtually every nation on the planet practices
> >
> > Practices...
> >
> > Amen, brother. They all **practice** it, but none of them have gotten it to
> > WORK.
> >
> > > some form of socialism, so
> > > I'd have to say that your claim that socialism working is counterfactual
> > > is...well, counterfactual.
> >
> > Don't confuse using with working. I'm happy with my claim, socialism doesn't
> > **work**.
>
>
> <snip>
>
> > ++Lar
>
> I'm happy with a claim that anything done to the point of the exclusion of
> *anything else*, doesn't work.
>
> Pure democracy does not work, for it's 'mob rule'--the most voices dictate
> what happens and the underdogs get pushed to the side.
>
> Like anything, you need a balance--Oxygen is needed for us to live, however,
> if someone breaths just *pure* oxygen, he or she will die. Likewise, we
> need water to live, but if someone were to base their entire diet on pure
> water and nothiing else, they will, as well, die.
>
> Canada is a democratic nation. However, because there is in place
> safeguards to protect the 'less fortunate', and we have 'free medical' for
> everybody in Canada, and other stuff, we, as a country, have socialist
> tendancies.
>
> It is my belief that 'pure' democracy will only come into its own when the
> selfish tendencies of 'the masses' is eliminated--Picture the following in a
> pure democratic culture:
>
> "We have this here vote proposed which would take some of your hard earned
> dollars from you and build a structure for those less fortunate--do you want
> to pass this provision? (yes/no)"
>
> The selfish part in me says I wanna keep my hard earned money for me, and
> therefore, bottom line, 'screw my neighbour'.
>
> The 'socialist' part of me says I should help look after those in need.
>
> Thank goodness there's the government, which, though sometimes badly, takes
> care of things like UI, medical and such. The accountability for gov't
> comes every 4-5 years when we get to vote the bums out of office :)
Ok, lets explore this. You say that people tend to want to not want to
help, that they would vote to keep the money for themselves, and that
only a government can convince them to help others. Well, what is the
government made up of? Last I heard it was people (even if some of us
might sometimes wish to exclude one or more politicians from the human
race). So, we have a government which is just a group of people who are
somehow expected to be different from people?
But time and time again, when disaster strikes, who do we find providing
help quicker than the government? Individuals. Why is this if
individuals are so inclined to not help?
It seems to me that people are quite capable of helping on their own,
without arm twisting. Sure, some number of jerks won't ever help. Some
won't choose to help this time, either because they don't feel the help
being called for is appropriate, or they've already given as much as
they can afford, or some other reason.
Why not let each person set their own level of giving. I bet it would be
more successful. I think the jerks would come off looking a lot worse,
and certainly wouldn't have a word of say on how the help is
distributed. I think we would see much more appropriate help given, and
far fewer people falling through the cracks (and if you don't believe
people fall through the cracks today, take a closer look the next time
you walk through the city, or the next time you take a drive into the
countryside).
Of course I guess some folks would take the belief that people won't
help individually because we are all sinners, yet government can make us
help because it is divine. That strikes me as the easy way out. "Hey, I
don't have to give of myself because I'm a sinner, but as a king by
divine right, I can force you to help."
I personally have faith in humanity. I see that faith demonstrated on a
daily basis. I see the accomplishments of government as accomplishments
of people.
And why must accountability come only every few years? And why should
that accountability simply be that you now have the free time and lack
of ethical restrictions to go around giving speeches for money? Isn't
4-5 years a little too long for someone to sit in jail with no recourse
simply because they happened to be born in the wrong country? If we had
real accountability, we would have a few people still in custody because
we were able to demonstrate that they were connected to wrongdoing, and
a bunch of people who would have been briefly detained and released when
we had failed to demonstrate their involvement.
Frank
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Those stupid liberal judges are at it again!
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| (...) <snip> (...) <snip> (...) I'm happy with a claim that anything done to the point of the exclusion of *anything else*, doesn't work. Pure democracy does not work, for it's 'mob rule'--the most voices dictate what happens and the underdogs get (...) (22 years ago, 12-Sep-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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